Proposed bust of Christopher Hitchens in Bloomsbury reopens old scars

Labour councillor Awale Olad, of Camden, opposes a proposed bust of the late Christopher Hitchens in Red Lion Square. The Camden New Journal has the full story.

Some thoughts:

1. A bust of Christopher Hitchens is unlikely to have any effect on social cohesion. To suggest otherwise overrates the power exerted by busts of dead writers. I doubt Christopher Hitchens affected social cohesion one bit while he was alive. He’s not about to start now. Most people will never even know the bust is there.

2. To those who are engaged, Christopher Hitchens remains, as councillor Olad says, a divisive figure. He had strong opinions. He supported the Iraq war and disbelieved in gods. Neither of these should disqualify him from commemoration. Had Voltaire been a town planner he might have said this:

“I may not agree with what he said, but I defend to the death the right for an image of his face to be made into a bust and plonked at the side of a square if his supporters really really want to.”

A good guiding principle.

3. A better argument against Hitchens’ commemoration is put forward by councillor Julian Fulbrook, also quoted in the Camden New Journal’s story (read it.)

“My main problem is that Hitch left for the United States in 1981 so any link with Red Lion Square would have to be fairly tenuous.”

It is with this sort of pragmatic reasoning that the question should be settled. Not a million tortuous reruns of whether or not we should invade Iraq.

4. There’s an argument that London has too many statues and memorials for its own good. Ronald Reagan, an American President with limited connections to London, has one. Peter Pan has one, despite being immature, thoughtless and fictional. Ledley King has one in Mile End Park, despite being an always injured footballer. The animals of war have one, despite the fact that animals are only really able to appreciate statues as objects to piss on.

5. However, this argument ultimately fails when pitted against the fact that each of these memorials is an addition to the richness of the streets. Statues of dead people can’t hurt us. It’s the living who do that.

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